nabling Trade: Increasing the Potential of Trade Reforms

It has become clear that as governments pursue trade facilitation, those that take a “horizontal” approach achieve the most success. This approach involves identifying industries with the highest potential for competitiveness, and then taking an end-to-end view of each industry’s value chain. It locates the specific trade barriers that should be addressed to allow the industry to reach a “tipping point” where it becomes competitive, thus enabling the flow of goods.This 2015 report uses case examples to illustrate supply chain bottlenecks and the ways that both national governments and the private sector can use ongoing trade reforms to either reduce or eliminate those hindrances. Trade reforms hold vast potential. For example, an estimated annual global cost savings of $77 billion (Figure 1) can be achieved by removing all barriers halfway to best practices.5 This does not include further savings in capital costs that can be generated from streamlining import and export times. This is only the beginning of the story – cost savings will enable many more products to move, thus increasing trade, jobs and GDP levels to the dramatic levels mentioned.